Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Elliott day-to-day with upper-body injury

HAZELWOOD, Mo. -- Maybe Ken Hitchcock's selection of a goalie for Game 1 of
the Western Conference Quarterfinal series against the San Jose Sharks became
easier with the news of Brian Elliott's upper-body injury.

But Hitchcock said it's nothing that will alter a decision as to who
starts, because Elliott is in play along with Jaroslav Halak. The injury is one
that Hitchcock said, "is from weeks ago when he fell into the net."

The Blues had a double practice session that lasted 90 minutes. They split
the time up and Elliott was on the ice for the first session. He took a good
amount of work but the team decided to keep him off the ice when they
returned.

"He's got a little bit of an upper-body issue, day-to-day," Hitchcock
added. "Rather than just try to squeeze the big, long [practice], we took him
[out after] the short one and we'll get him back out here tomorrow or the next
day and see how it is. He'll be fine though.

"We didn't want to aggravate it. We've been nursing it for a week. We
didn't want to take him too far down the lineup. He got a lot of work in the
first 45 minutes."

Elliott led the NHL in goals-against average (1.56) and save percentage
(.940) this season after going 23-10-4. Hitchcock said Elliott will still be up
for selection for Thursday's opener.

"It's more maintenance," Hitchcock said. "We've been nursing this thing for
a week now. It's not a big deal. We knew how long this day was going to be and
we just felt like, 'Man, why cool a guy down?' If we're going to continue to
practice at this tempo, we might bring a third guy in."

The team recalled Jake Allen from Peoria of the American Hockey League on
an emergency basis but only to participate in the practices. Hitchcock has moved
up a day for naming a starter after initially saying he would wait until
Thursday morning.

"I'm going to move it up a day so you guys can write about something,"
Hitchcock joked. "I'll give it to you on Wednesday. I'm going to give you a
little treat.

"If the games started tomorrow and I decided on [Elliott], he's a player."